21 things every American should know about climate
change

By Steve Kirsch

I'm not a climate scientist. Over the past four moths, I've spent a lot of
time researching climate change and talking with the experts. I'd like to share
with you the most important
things that I learned:

Global warming is the biggest threat that our civilization has ever
faced.

We have the technology we need to start to solve the problem. What we lack is the
political will.

Electing the right President is critical.

We must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 90% ASAP and get other
countries to do the same

We are short on time; we have less than 10 years to achieve dramatic reductions

Incremental improvements won't get us there

We must transition all our power and transportation systems to
zero emissions starting today

We need to incorporate the true economic cost of greenhouse gas
emissions into our energy prices

Efficiency and conservation are the low hanging fruit

We must incentivize things that make the problem better and stop
incentivizing things that make the problem worse

Government should have a few rules, a few strategic investments, and
lots of incentives

Reducing global population makes it much easier to achieve our goal

The easiest way to get other countries to reduce their emissions is to
rapidly reduce the costs of the new technology

We must continue invest heavily in clean energy R&D

Most of us can reduce our carbon footprint by 10% or more overnight by
making a few easy changes

We need a great integrated, long-term plan

We need to make our progress more visible

Nuclear power should only be used as a last resort

Global warming is more important than jobs or the economy or anything
else

We cannot solve this alone

Replacing coal plants with zero emissions plants is one of the highest
leverage things we can do

Global warming is the biggest threat that our civilization has ever
facedThe change in the world’s climate, which is constantly becoming clearer, “is
the biggest problem that our civilization has ever been confronted with,” said
Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government. The more I
learn about climate change, the more I find myself in agreement with this
statement. It is only through the recognition of the critical importance of this
issue that we will be able to prioritize our resources intelligently and
appropriately to deal with this enormous challenge. We have only one planet.
Preserving it for future generations must be our top priority.

We have the technology we need to start to solve the problem. What we lack is the
political will.We have the technology today to get started on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by more
than 80%. We know how to generate power from renewable sources at low cost with
nearly zero emissions. We also know how to make cars that run on this cleanly
generated power (such as plug-in hybrids and full power battery electric
vehicles). Yet this technology is either sitting on the sidelines or deployed in
very low volume. There are four primary reasons for that. First,
energy prices are unfairly distorted because of huge government subsidies of the
fossil fuel industry and because we do not ascribe a true market cost to emitting greenhouse gases. Secondly, the
fossil fuel industry spends a lot of money to ensure that our government
protects their interests at the expense of the public interest. Thirdly, many of
the technologies we have available to us need government assistance in order to overcome
scale issues, cost issues, technical
hurdles, and market barriers before they can be widely deployed and while
others, such as carbon capture and sequestration, need more government funded
pilot projects to prove viability. Fourthly, unlike
typical disasters, climate change is deceptive because the damage is done
many decades before we see the results and the impacts happen very slowly, not
abruptly. So there is never a single "disaster" that can initiate political
change. Even with all the public awareness about global warming today, Congress
still refuses to redirect the incentives away from industries that make the
problem worse and toward industries that make the problem better. We need to
change that. Al Gore is right when
he says "we have to
urgently expand the limits of what is politically possible." Clean money election reforms such as Senator Durbin's
Fair Elections
Now Act (S.1285) are extremely helpful in accomplishing that.

Electing the right President is critical
During the Live Earth concert,
Robert Kennedy, Jr. said the most important thing we can do to combat climate
change is to get involved in the political process. He's exactly right. By far,
the most important office for us to choose is our next President. We cannot just
elect any Democrat. Our next President must be a bold leader who both
understands and can articulate the importance of climate change and who is not
afraid to mobilize our country to solve it. We need a President that will
set a bold greenhouse gas reduction goal for our country and who will ask us to
rise the challenge to solving the greatest crisis mankind has ever faced. We
need a President who will engage our nation's best thinkers to create a bold
plan to meet the challenge and then mobilize the Congress to support that plan.
Our next President must have the courage to ask people to make environmentally
friendly choices. We must also educate the public on the importance of electing
members of Congress who both understand the problem and who are committed to
help solve it.

We must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 90% ASAP and get other
countries to do the sameThe best way to minimize the impacts of climate change is to make the
reductions as soon as we can. It's also cheaper to act sooner. The
Stern Review pointed out
that it is twenty times less expensive to avoid the impacts of climate change
than to pay the price of dealing with it. So what are we waiting for? The sooner
we make the cuts here, the sooner we can encourage other developed nations to follow our
lead. In general, the deeper we cut now, the less it will cost us later. If we could cut our
emissions to zero tomorrow, that would provide the greatest benefit. But that is
not practical. However, a 90% reduction in less than 30 years is possible to achieve. We cannot continue
to take the position "if other countries don't cut, we won't either." We must be a world
leader and set an example for others to follow. If they do not, we must work
very hard to ensure that they do. Failure is not an option.

We have less than 10 years to achieve dramatic reductionsYou hear a lot of talk about achieving 80% reductions by 2050. But the
reality is that we must act much sooner than that. There is a ecological
"tipping point" that scientists believe will occur before 2017. When that tipping
point is exceeded, our climate system transitions from a negative feedback
system into a positive feedback system. Today, our natural systems act to dampen
the amount of CO2 we release by absorbing a good fraction of it. But as the
earth becomes hotter, these systems break down and will start contributing to
making things worse instead of better. If we do not make
dramatic progress within the next 10 years, then climate change becomes a
runaway train, beyond our ability to control it. This will not be easy. Today, worldwide emissions are increasing at a faster rate than at any point in
history. We don't have a lot of time. The deeper and faster we cut our emissions
over the next 10 years, the better.

Incremental improvements won't get us there
Baby steps won't get us there in time. Incremental efficiency gains won't get us
there in time. Instead of thinking of how we can improve fuel efficiency by 10
miles per gallon over 10 years, we should instead be asking ourselves how can we
can improve by over 100 miles per gallon in less than 5 years. We can do this
with plug-in hybrids. It will not be easy. But we have the technology to do
this. In 1941, we completely re-tooled our automotive plants in less than 12
months. We could do it then. We can do it now.

We must transition all our power and transportation systems to zero
emissions starting todayIn order to achieve an overall 90% reduction goal, we must transition all
our energy sources to sources that are at least 90% cleaner on average than the sources we
use today. That is a huge and revolutionary undertaking, but there is no other
option. For all practical
purposes, it means any time we build a new power plant or replace an existing
one, we must choose an alternative that is as close to zero emissions as we can
get. It also means every single
coal and natural gas plant must either be retrofitted with carbon capture and
storage, or they must be shut down. It means that every new power plant that we
build must be either zero emissions or nearly zero emissions. That means no new
coal or natural gas plants can be built until carbon capture and sequestration is proven to
be safe and secure. We can do this
today using wind, concentrated solar (such as Ausra), geothermal, hydro, and
other technologies. We need to extend our electrical grid to our nation's
"renewable hotspot" locations where power can be generated or stored
inexpensively and then build the transmissions lines we need to link those resources to major regional power grids. We
need to upgrade our grid to be a smart grid that can accept power from
intermittent renewable sources. We need to transition all our cars to
technologies that have well-to-wheels zero or near zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The most efficient way to accomplish that using technology available today
is to
fuel our transportation from the power grid with full-power battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids with a 40 mile
all electric range. If you start with green power, battery electric vehicles are
almost four time more efficient than the most efficient fuel cells that are run
on green hydrogen. However, according to a study at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, with today's electrolyzers and power costs of 5.5 cents per
kWh, green hydrogen can be produced for $3 per kg which makes green hydrogen as
a fuel source competitive with gasoline. Finally, all our cars should be made out of advanced
materials that are lighter, cheaper, and stronger than today's materials. With
the right government incentives, all of these technologies can become realities.
We can move from a fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon to over 125 miles per
gallon by adopting technologies in use today. Today, consumers who want to make
a green choice cannot because grid-powered cars aren't commercially available.
We need to change that.

We need to incorporate the true economic cost of greenhouse gas emissions
into our energy pricesToday, there are significant market distortions that favor existing fossil
fuel technologies and make it more difficult for new clean-energy technologies
to compete. This means that energy prices do not reflect their true economic
cost to society. There are two ways to fix that. First, we must attach an
economic cost to greenhouse gas emissions such as by using with a
cap-and-auction system (with a cap that goes down each year). Secondly, we must divert our government subsidies from
things which make the problem worse to things that make the problem better. Energy prices will then reflect their true
economic cost and our free market system can operate much more efficiently.

Efficiency and conservation are the low hanging fruitConservation and efficiency are the easiest ways to achieve reductions
because they are typically negative cost items, i.e., they save us money.
Education and incentives will help to accelerate movement in this area. Simple
things such as compact fluorescent light bulbs, better building insulation, and
driving at the speed limit are have a very high economic payback.

We must incentivize things that make the problem better and stop
incentivizing things that make the problem worse
We cannot just rely on fixing the economics so that we factor
in the cost of greenhouse gas emissions and then let the market work. That will
take too long. In order to move swiftly, incentives are absolutely
required. Right now, things are incentivized backwards. According to Plan B 2.0, the world's fossil fuel industry is being
subsidized by taxpayers at more than $210 billion per year. Imagine
what would happen if that money were directed toward helping clean energy
technologies that are in the public interest instead of helping industries that
make the problem worse! It would cost us nothing. We wouldn't have to change the
amount of spending at all. We'd only change where we spent it.
Secondly, we must carefully prioritize our incentives so that the technologies
with the greatest emission reductions get the most incentives. Today, it's the reverse.
Buying a Hummer gets you a bigger tax break than buying a Prius. We need to
change that. We must also make sure that efficiency and conservation incentives
are aligned between producers and consumers. For example, power companies should
share the savings when customers use less energy and cogeneration should be
encouraged.

We should avoid installing long-term infrastructure—such as inefficient
buildings and conventional coal-fired power plants—that will lock in untenable
emission trajectories, especially since there are cost-effective clean
alternatives available. Incentives should be used only for technologies that can
help us achieve our 90% reduction goal.

Government should have a few rules, a few strategic investments, and lots
of incentivesThe role of government should be to set one very clear greenhouse gas
reduction goal and then establish only those regulations that are absolutely
required to ensure that the goal is met. The fewer the rules, the better. For
example, establishing a cap-and-auction system ensures that the emissions are
within the goals. The regulations and incentives should be carefully thought
through, and, whenever possible, proven to be effective before they are rolled
out on a national scale. We should also learn from and avoid the mistakes of other
countries (such as the cap-and-allocate system used by the EU). If we must roll
out unproven regulations or incentives, they should pass a scientific peer
review process. Also, there are a few strategic investments or bets that the
government needs to make. For example, we have enough wind power in just a few
states to power the entire country. But without a national electric grid, that
power cannot be sold or delivered. Just like the government invested in a national highway
system, it should make a strategic investment in a national energy system. The
incentives also need to be long-term and stable. For example, no one will invest
billions to build wind farms if the government can change the rules the next
day. A very important advantage of using incentives to change behavior is that
it's hard to argue that incentives will cost jobs, damage the economy, or limit
consumer choice since incentives are never mandatory. Incentives also are a
great way to test veracity. If our government offers $100 billion
dollars to the first car company to mass produce cars before 2015 that achieve more than
125
miles per gallon, who would oppose that? If it is so impossible to do, then why
would anyone oppose it?

Reducing global population makes it much easier to achieve our goalThere is a clear connection between population growth and virtually every
challenge facing our planet. It's time we stopped avoiding talking about this
issue and started making it part of the national dialog. In 2002, a team of
scientists led by Mathis Wackernagel concluded that human demands surpassed our
planet's ability to regenerate back in 1980. Today, the US makes up 5% of the
world's population, but consumes a third of it's resources. Imagine what would
happen if everyone had the same standard of living that we do! Over the last 50
years, we've doubled our population. Fortunately, the rate of population growth
has declined recently, but it is still increasing. Did you know that half of the
pregnancies in the US today are unwanted? We don't need to restrict anyone's
desire to have children. All we need to do is to reduce the rate of unwanted
pregnancies. Both
liberal and conservatives states are doing this now and we need to help the
rest of the world do the same. By
every major metric
we can measure, our civilization is in the state of decline with respect to
our natural resources. The lower our population the easier it will be to reverse
these trends including global warming. Without lowering our population, it will
be impossible. You never hear anyone talk about it, but eliminating unwanted
pregnancies world wide is one of the most cost effective ways we can reduce
global warming.

The easiest way to get other countries to reduce their emissions is to
rapidly reduce the costs of the new technologyA lot of people think we are doomed. They think even if we can do it in the
US, we'll never get India and China to agree to the same goals. And even if we
did, they can easily fail to meet their promised commitment. That very well may
be true. If we allow ourselves to think that way, we'll ensure it is true
because if we don't try, we are almost sure to fail. There is a much more
promising scenario however. If we can implement these technologies in the US and
increase the scale and drive down the costs, then those countries will have an
economic incentive to adopt clean energy technologies. That is a powerful
motivator. Combined with sufficient political and economic sanctions from
countries that have reduced their emissions, it should provide sufficient
motivation for countries to participate.

We must invest continue to invest heavily in clean energy R&DAlthough we have the technologies we need to start fighting global warming today,
government R&D funding is needed to achieve lower costs and to encourage the
invention, development, and rapid commercialization of the next generation of
clean-energy technologies that will allow us to reduce our greenhouse
gas emissions by 90%. We should put the most money into the technologies that
will have the greatest payoff over the next 20 years. Can you
imagine where we would be if we had taken the $400 billion we invested in
"Operation Iraqi Freedom" and instead invested it in "Operation American Energy
Independence"? We need to spend billions on a wide variety of technologies:
battery, fuel cell, hydrogen, cellulosic ethanol, wind, concentrated solar,
geothermal, carbon capture and storage,
large scale energy storage (such as advanced adiabatic compressed air energy
storage) for intermittent renewables, photovoltaic solar, and the list goes on.
Did you know that we have 100 times more geothermal energy than coal? It's our
nation's cleanest and largest energy source. An
MIT study recommended
that the US invest $1 billion over 15 years to investigate new geothermal technology. We
still haven't done it. We need a President that demands that these types of
investments in our future be made.

Most of us can reduce our carbon footprint by 10% or more overnight by
making a few easy changes
Government policy changes are necessary for us to achieve the huge reductions
that are required. Consumer education is one of the most efficient ways to
achieve reductions very quickly. Many of us can make a few minor changes and achieve a 10% or more reduction
literally overnight. For example, to save 10% on your electricity usage you can
change your lightbulbs to compact fluorescents, use cold water instead of hot in
the laundry; hand wash your dishes instead of using a dishwasher; raise the
thermostat on your air conditioner (or lower your heater in winter) to save
energy, and so on. You can save up to 15% in fuel consumption by following the
simple tips at Flex Your Power
at the Pump. In general, educating the public on ways to save energy is a
low cost way to achieve significant reductions very quickly.

We need a great integrated, long-term planIn order to accomplish our goals, we need all the pieces to work
together. Plug-in hybrids are zero emissions only if all our power is clean (but
even with the current dirty electricity,
hybrids are still cleaner than petroleum). Wind
energy is useless if there are no power lines to transmit the energy. The pieces
are all interrelated, the issues are complex, and there are credible experts
that disagree. For example, is hydrogen a viable transportation fuel? There are
widely varying opinions among the experts. Government should pick a path and
make a few strategic bets on the best way to achieve our goal without closing
the door to any alternatives that emerge. For example, Brazil made a strategic
bet on ethanol that has served them well; they did not just incentivize
everything and let the market sort things out. The energy problem is so complex that
it requires a room full of experts to understand all the pieces and how they
might fit together. We need to tap the best minds in our country, put them in a
room, tell them we need to reduce our carbon footprint by 90% as soon as we can,
and ask them what are the best options available for government to facilitate
this goal. That plan must have long term time horizons and we must guarantee
policy stability (including a sufficiently high carbon price and investment
credits) over decades-long time periods. The final plan of investment,
regulations, and incentives chosen by our President should pass scientific peer review
as being both necessary and sufficient to achieve the goal.

We need to make our progress more visible
Ever try to lose weight? A
scale gives us positive feedback when we stick to our diet, and negative
feedback when we don't. Similarly, we should track and publicize our CO2
emissions on a weekly basis. For now, if you want to see what things look
like around the globe, check out
BreathingEarth. In the near future, we'll be able to track our own
individual energy use and greenhouse gas emissions using devices such as the $50
ecoMeter, a passive device which has
reduced power usage by up to 30%.

Nuclear power should only be used as a last resortThere are
many other arguments against nuclear power in this Greenpeace report. If
used, ideally they should be constructed in
a way that can survive (without dangerous emissions) an earthquake (such as the
earthquake in Japan recently) or terrorist attack. We have clean renewable
technologies that we should deploy instead that don't have the risks of nuclear
plants. Also, any technology we develop, we need to be able to export to other
nations to follow. So while nuclear looks like it may not be viable, global
warming is the more immediate problem. It is interesting to note that Germany is
actively trying to get off of its huge investment in nuclear power (see
Germany
says auf Wiedersehen to nuclear power). In 2005, 30% of their power was from
nuclear. Germany hopes to close all nuclear plants by 2020. So if for some
reason we cannot reach our greenhouse gas reduction goals without nuclear, then
we need to decide whether it should be part of the mix.

Global warming is more important than jobs or the economy or anything else
You hear President Bush talk about how we can't afford to fight global warming
or that it "would hurt the economy." We must decide whether saving the planet is
more important than potentially hurting our economy (many say it would help our
economy, especially our balance of trade). This is a tough question we should
all ponder. The planet? Or our economy? Which is more important. Hmmm....

We cannot solve this alone
Even if we cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero tomorrow, that would help a
lot, but we would still have a problem. Cutting the US GHG emissions to zero
tomorrow is the equivalent of everyone cutting their emissions by 25%. That
would be a great start, but we'll still emit more than the planet absorbs.
Therefore, even after this enormous cut, CO2 will continue to rise every year
and our temperature will continue to get hotter and hotter every single year at
an increasing rate!! This is a global problem. The US must show it can be done,
we must cut as deeply and as quickly as we can, and we must aggressively export
our technology to other countries and provide sufficient carrots and sticks to
ensure that they do.

We need a set of Apollo projects for global warmingWe should identify less than a dozen key R&D goals needed to solve global
warming. For example, create a full power battery electric vehicle for under
$20K by 2020.

Replacing coal plants with zero emissions plants is one of the highest
leverage things we can doConsider the following:

Home Depot has
funded the planting of 300,000 trees in cities across the US. Each tree
will absorb and store about one-third of a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2)
over its lifetime. In addition to the coal plants that already exist,
there are now 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants in various
stages of development in the US today. The CO2 emissions from only
one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of
operation, would negate the Home Depot’s entire effort.

Wal-Mart, the
largest “private” purchaser of electricity in the world is investing a
half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next 7
years. "As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding
global presence, environmental problems are our problems," said CEO Lee
Scott. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power
plant, in just one month of operation each year, would negate Wal-Mart’s
entire effort.

California, which
makes up over 10% of the country’s new vehicle market, passed
legislation to cut GHG emissions in new cars by 25% and in SUVs by 18%,
starting in 2009. If every car and SUV sold in California in 2009 met
this standard, the CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized
coal-fired power plant, in just eight months of operation each year,
would negate California’s 2009 effort.

In the US,
approximately 5 billion square feet of residential, commercial and
government buildings are renovated in a year. The US Conference of
Mayors, American Institute of Architects, US Green Building Council and
numerous states, counties and cities have adopted The 2030 Challenge to
reduce the energy consumption of all renovated buildings by 50% (see
www.architecture2030.org).
The CO2 emissions from just one 750 MW coal-fired power plant each
year would negate this entire 2030 Challenge effort.

If every
household in the U.S. changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a
compact fluorescent, the CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized
coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.

The Campus
Climate Challenge (CCC), a growing student movement in the US, states
that global warming “is our problem, and it’s up to us to solve it,
starting right here on campus, right now.” The challenge calls for all
high school and college campuses in the US to go carbon neutral (reduce
global warming pollution to zero). If the challenge were met, the CO2
emissions from just four medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year
would negate the CCC’s entire effort.

The Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a ‘cap and trade’ cooperative effort
by eleven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states (ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI,
NY, PA, NJ, DL, MD) to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to 1990
levels by 2014. The CO2 emissions from just 13 medium-sized
coal-fired power plants each year would negate the entire RGGI effort.

Many climate
change bills have been introduced in Congress this year to cap and begin
reducing US greenhouse gas emissions, so any new coal-fired
power plants work to negate these efforts.

Seven of the
most important things we can do to combat climate change

Elect a
President and members of Congress who are committed to solving the problem
now.

Incentivize or mandate efficiency, conservation, and waste reduction. The average
Californian uses about half of the electricity used by the average American.

No new coal plants until carbon capture is proven to be both economical
and secure. Because that will probably take more than 10 years, the only
option we have in the short term is to phase out existing coal plants as
soon as possible. All new plants should use technologies that are at
least 90% cleaner than existing coal plants.

Cap and trade by auctioning permits with a declining cap equal to our goal.
Auction proceeds are distributed to the public as well as used for clean
energy R&D and incentives. Caps to be made as upstream as you can.

Phase in as rapidly as possible transportation and fuels that are at
least 90% cleaner than existing transportation such as plug in hybrids with
large all electric range and cellulosic ethanol and green hydrogen.

Comprehensive actions across the board of strategies (preventing
deforestation, sustainable agriculture, etc.). We will
not avoid catastrophe without working equally hard on everything, starting
with efficiency (because that delivers immediate results).